Childe Poggio to Forgiveness came...

Dearest Brother Poggio,

The other morning I was sipping the bean, listening to the sunrise. I thought of you - then I thought of how you think people are sometimes ‘out to get you’. So I stopped and thought about what I was thinking about you, and it was where are the poems he promised me? Ha! This poem is as a symbol of a few different things:

Sometimes people are thinking good things about you. They might even write you a poem! In the poem you may be a tortured and warty, yet ultimately righteous and everyman hero. The journey you have been on. It’s epic. Worthy of a bard with a defter touch than I. Where I have exacerbated or embellished a concept, I wasn’t trying to pick any scabs. Rather to engage the reader, to make them feel a hevel of the crosswinds you have faced.

The first few stanzas, I was trying to map directly to the original masterpiece. Egad man - what a crazy poem. Utterly ineffable yet begging to be read aloud! Anyway, what started as homage, started to feel more like mockery. So I put it down for a while, then came back and finished it up today. In typical Ardea style, I’ve tried to make the final message my own.

Enough, just read the entire thing. It is my wish for you, the manifestation of the good thought I was having when I started the piece. One Love, So much love.

Yours faithfully,
Lorenzo

Ps - tell mother my anemia is in remission, it was too much mirth, too much joy - I'm much sadder now, she'll be relieved.

Lorenzo Ardea - Childe Poggio to Forgiveness Came.
2-14-2016

His default mode to question and concern
These loathsome sinners full of wont and mirth
Sideways glances and polite smiles give birth
To the promise that he will one day burn.
To the glory on which his back has turned.
The hubris to measure another’s worth.

If not the good book, what else be their rod?
How else to judge and how else to yoke?
For he that refused the word clearly spoke.
The path was laid bare, right this way to God.
Crystalline the word, exquisite the prod.
To laugh his choice, fully in on the joke.

As a hiker ignores the pebbled boot.
Onto the mission our hero imparts,
head in the game if not fully his heart.
Bread be his wages, Salvation his loot.
Rich in sacrament, steadfast, resolute.
Believing enough. He thought that a start.

Robed, anointed, warden to his captors,
Their knees doth buckle, and their hearts doth swoon.
His flock, his church, he’s a Jesus tycoon.
Happy to read and reread this chapter
Resigned to the cause, how could it matter
that he no longer longed Sundays at noon?

As Shylock regrets the widows debt
He continues to lend and rend the same,
Always relief in the choirs refrain.
Knowing him knowing was never a threat.
He confidante, the congregation pet.
Unshared, his doubt mere loathing and not shame.

Righteous huddles, I struggle you hear!
Forced to feed off their regurgitations,
Trapped in the spin of his machinations,
A zero sum wager, a near blind seer,
A lost shepherd, hippocrite without peer.
He dreads the day of appropriations.

For years this went on, gray scale compunction.
So then, when all seemed ash, the pastor found
Right here and right now IS the higher ground.
True north is inward, tis no malfunction.
An ice cold Reisling, a perfect unction.
His journey begins, he’s no longer bound.

The bay came calling, what motley preachers.
Each drawn to healing, the patient unknown.
The acknowledgment, life is but on loan.
It was Saintly work, for hopeful seekers,
Keeper of prayers, soundboard to grievers.
Painful reaping of his good choices sown.

To learn from the best, no more half measure.
His hair was on fire, his ass was catching.
The land of The Wire, Hopkins looked fetching.
So off yet again, with foretold treasure.
The learnings profound, damn be this weather.
Stark blueprints of yore, now barely etchings.

Father and monk meet in a hotel barroom
At last to understand, they are one soul,
Journeys inclusive, a singular goal.
Returning to home is never too soon
Love a beckoning, the sweetest of tune.
One hug and one kiss, worth all of the toll.

The tape catches up, the tower achieved.
Where was the send up, the victory toast?
When is the party, the celebrity roast?
Two long hours each way to see the bereaved,
Letting go now of pain long ago steeved.

There they sat, in their shiny steel coffins
Behold our status, equal in traffic
Childe William is strong, hope is no racket.
Mans resolve hardens as his heart softens.
Fearless he honks them, all’s not forgiven.
And sung, "I am alive and well, fuck it!"